Astronauts Drink Recycled Urine, and Celebrate

The Expedition 19 crew participates in a toast aboard the International Space Station.

Credit: NASA TV

Astronauts took a swig of recycled urine water to toast their
successful testing of the wastewater recycling system on the International
Space Station.

U.S. astronaut Michael Barratt called drinking the recycled
water the stuff of science
fiction, and cracked several jokes during the inauguration of the system
known as ECLSS.

"We have these highly attractive labels on our water
bags that essentially say 'brought to you by ECLSS,' and 'drink when real water
is over 200 miles away,'" Barratt said.

Barratt appeared on NASA TV with crewmate Koichi Wakata, a
Japanese astronaut, and station commander Gennady Padalka, a Russian cosmonaut.
Earth crowds gathered at NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston and Marshall
Space Flight Center in Huntsville.

The water recycling system cost about $250 million and will
be used daily to recycle urine and wastewater back into potable water suitable
for drinking, food preparation, bathing and oxygen generation. The system has
been used in the station?s U.S. built oxygen generator, which uses electrolysis
to separate water into oxygen and hydrogen, since November.

"We have completely checked out the system from end to
end,? said Marybeth Edeen, a JSC manager who led the development of the space
station gear needed to support a full six-person crew.

A series
of glitches and malfunctions
in the new space gizmo have prevented astronauts from using it since it
launched last November with the space shuttle Endeavour's STS-126 mission.

Today astronaut Don Pettit spoke with the space station crew
from Houston, as part of the STS-126 crew celebrating the overdue inauguration
of the recycler. He also apologized for not leaving his homemade zero-g
coffee cup.

"We're getting ready to toast with some of yesterday's
coffee with you guys," Pettit said.

That prompted a tongue-in-cheek reply from the space
station.

"We're going to be drinking yesterday's coffee
frequently up here, and happy to do it," Barratt replied.

A round of "Cheers!" was followed by the
astronauts "clinking" together giant water pouches, before each
grabbed a sip from their straws. The crew toasted twice, once for Mission
Control and once for Marshall.

"Gennady's showing it's perfectly clear and worth
chasing in zero-g," Barratt noted as the Russian cosmonaut closed in on an
escaping water drop.

Wakata thanked everyone for the "real teamwork that
made it possible to drink this recycled water." His sentiments were widely
shared.

The small celebration signaled an important step for the
space station to support its newly expanded six-member crew starting later this
month. Having recycled water
available also lightens the load for Russian resupply ships.

"It was wonderful," Edeen told SPACE.com
following the toast. ?It really is the culmination of maybe a decade of work to
make this happen."